Beyond the song and dance

NEW YORK -- It was nearly 35 years ago when Priscilla Lopez sat in a circle with a group of other Broadway dancers and told her life story to director and choreographer Michael Bennett. The meeting became the stuff of Broadway lore.

Bennett drew from those dancers’ experiences to create the 1975 blockbuster musical “A Chorus Line.” Lopez’s portrayal of Diana Morales, a character based on herself, made her a Broadway star.

The Tony-winning actress is now back on Broadway in “In the Heights,” which follows a close-knit Latino community in the upper Manhattan neighborhood of Washington Heights during three eventful days.

Lin-Manuel Miranda, the show’s 28-year-old creator and star, credits Lopez’s performance in “A Chorus Line” for blazing the trail for his play and the work of its other Latino performers.

“She’s the reason we’re all here,” Miranda says. “Morales was the first three-dimensional Puerto Rican character we’ve had in musical theater.”

“In the Heights” also has broken boundaries, particularly in its music, which is infused with Latin rhythms, pop and hip-hop. The broad appeal of that unique sound drew Lopez to the show. “Musically, it spoke to the young, the Latin and the Broadway audience,” she says.

Lopez plays Camila Rosario, a mother forced to mediate between her proud husband and strong-willed daughter, who has returned home from college. Against the backdrop of a summer power blackout, Nina clashes with her parents as she struggles to reconcile her desires with loyalty to her family.

“She brings such an authority to her role as Camila,” Miranda says. “She’s got this fierceness. It’s the same fierceness she brought to Morales in 1975.”

On stage and off, Lopez, who just turned 60, looks younger than her years. Her hair is jet black, and she still carries a lean dancer’s figure, although she gave up dancing nearly 25 years ago.

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An early start

Over a light dinner before a preview performance, Lopez is warm, funny and sometimes emotional, particularly when talking about her children: 23-year-old Alex and 18-year-old Gabriella, who are pursuing acting careers. “I love it, and I fear for them,” she says about their chosen paths.

Lopez’s career began in the Fort Greene housing projects of Brooklyn when her mother encouraged her to take dance lessons. Later, she was cast as a child extra in the screen adaptation of “West Side Story,” which inspired her to attend the renowned High School of Performing Arts.

When she was 13, Lopez began lining up at open auditions. She landed her first Broadway musical, “Breakfast at Tiffany’s,” at age 18. The show was a flop that closed before opening night, but Lopez landed on her feet.

“Four years later, I had done four Broadway shows,” Lopez says. “And I thought, ‘Hey, that’s cool. There’s my college degree.’ ”

While performing in “Company,” Lopez met her husband, Vincent Fanuele, who was playing trombone in the orchestra. She was 22 when they married.

And then in 1974, Lopez was asked to participate in the taped sessions that would lead to “A Chorus Line.” In the role of Morales, Lopez sang two of the show’s most beloved songs: “Nothing,” about the high school acting teacher who battered her confidence, and “What I Did for Love,” about a dancer’s devotion to the theater.

Lopez was nominated for a Tony for the role but lost to costar Kelly Bishop. Lopez’s Tony win for featured role in a musical came in 1980, for her performance in “A Day in Hollywood/ A Night in the Ukraine.”

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Debate settled

Earlier this year, Lopez and others in the original “A Chorus Line” cast received an additional reward for their work: compensation for the ongoing Broadway revival. The dancers had originally sold their stories to Bennett for $1 apiece. Bennett, who died in 1987, later modified the agreement to include some royalties, but a debate over compensation continued until last month, when it was settled for undisclosed terms.

Lopez is prohibited from discussing the details of the agreement. “I’m satisfied that it’s dealt with and resolved,” she says. But she says the “greatest gift” of “A Chorus Line” was her influence on the next generations of Latino performers, including her current cast mates.

Mandy Gonzalez, who plays Lopez’s daughter, Nina, remembers listening to Lopez sing “Nothing” as a child. “Growing up with the last name of Gonzalez and listening to musicals and hearing a name like Diana Morales, you relate to that,” she says. “She has paved the path for so many of us.”

In recent years, Lopez has stayed busy with a string of stage and screen performances. On Broadway, she most recently appeared in Nilo Cruz’s “Anna in the Tropics,” a drama about Cuban American cigar factory workers that starred Jimmy Smits. On screen, her roles have included Jennifer Lopez’s mother in the 2002 romantic comedy “Maid in Manhattan.”

But when she talks about her greatest accomplishments, Lopez always returns to her long marriage and two children. She advises young actors to work at their personal lives as much as they do their careers.

“The business is fickle,” she says. “So you have to have a life that sustains you, that fulfills you in another kind of way and keeps you in touch with real life. And when you’re in touch with real life, your work will be better because it will be honest.”